Dr. Mohnen received her B.A. (magna cum laude) in biology in 1979 from Lawrence University (Wisconsin), and her M.S. in botany in 1981 and Ph.D. in plant biology in 1985 from the University of Illinois. Her Ph.D. research was conducted at the Friedrich Mischer Institute in Basel, Switzerland. She held postdoctoral research associate positions at the USDA's Richard Russell Research Center, and at the Complex Carbohydrate Research Center (CCRC) in Athens, GA and won an NIH National Research Service Award for her postdoctoral research during 1987-89 at the CCRC. She was appointed to the CCRC faculty in September 1990 where she is presently Professor in the Department of Biochemisty and Molecular Biology and also adjunct faculty member in the Department of Plant Biology and member of the Plant Center at UGA. She served from 1994-97 on the Committee on the Status of Women in Plant Physiology of the American Society of Plant Physiologists, as invited faculty sponsor for the UGA Association for Women in Science (AWIS) from 2005-2007 and as past member-at-large in the Cellulose and Renewable Materials Division of the American Chemical Society. As Co-PI on the NSF-funded “Plant Cell Wall Biosynthesis Research Network” Dr. Mohnen established the originally NSF-funded service “CarboSource Services”, that provides rare substrates for plant wall polysaccharide synthesis to the research community. Her research centers on the biosynthesis, function and structure of plant cell wall polysaccharides. Her emphasis is on the biosynthesis of pectin, pectin function in plants and human health, and on the improvement of plant cell wall structure so as to improve the efficiency of conversion of plant wall biomass to biofuels. Dr. Mohnen was awarded the 2008 Bruce Stone Award by the Plant Polysaccharide Workshop for contributions and promising research in the area of Pectin Biosynthesis. She is Chair of the 2009 Plant Cell Walls Gordon Research Conference. Dr. Mohnen is Activity Lead in Plant Cell Wall Biosynthesis Research in the DOE-funded BioEnergy Science Center (BESC).
Her research is supported by funding from the USDA, NSF and DOE.
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Sterling, J., H.F. Quigley, A. Orellana, and D. Mohnen. 2001. The catalytic site of the pectin biosynthetic enzyme a-1,4-galacturonosyltransferase (GalAT) is located in the lumen of the Golgi. Plant Physiol.127: 360-371.